2008-01-02 - 10:08 p.m.
Well. That was one heck of a month. I mean, I was expecting it to be a bit of work. I mean, when you work in the office of a big church, and Christmas is coming, well, you know that it won't be a walk in the park. But man, was it stressfull. I think that what really got to me was that I had to rely on other people for so much. I don't pick the hymns, or the liturgy, and it's not my place to make any decisions (save the colour of the announcement sheets) so I had to get everyone else to give me what was needed, put it all together, then they would check it over three or four times. We got it done though, and I think I'm going to get it set up better for next Christmas, even though I hopefully won't be there.
It was worth going through though, to get home for ten days or so. Christmas at home was great, as it always is. Mom and Dad have always given us a great Christmas, and this year was no exception. Two aunts made it down to Rocky, as well as three of four siblings. Lots of great presents and Christmas cheer. I didn't really do that much while I was home. I sat around a lot, did lots of reading. I tried out Dance Dance Revoloution (terrible at it) and Guitar Hero (even worse).
I booked my flight back for the first, so I decided to spend New Years with Jesse in Edmonton. We went up on Saturday, and I spent the day with the fam. Allison just moved into a new place, and she and her building mates were having a house swarming that night. Mom, Jude, Grace and I went to see " I am Legend" in the afternoon. It was a really great movie, and I read a review after that made me want to read the book, which was written in the fifties.
The house swarming was really fun. Allison and three friends went together and bought a four unit building together, and are going to run it as a coop. It's a neat building, from the forties I think. The apartments are quite big, and will be super nice with a bit of work.
I stayed with Jesse that night, and we went to his church in the morning. It's an evangelical church, pretty protestant, so I was pretty interested to see it. When we got there (late) a couple missionaries were talking, one from Africa, and one from Jordan. They were pretty interesting. The songs were olders ones, but I knew most of them, and liked the ones I knew, and they even sang an old favorite of mine, although I have to say that I don't care that much for the version they did. There were, for some reason, two sermons. The first was on not wasting your life, and I didn't listen to the second. I'm an Anglican- I tune out after ten minutes (fifteen max). Jesse had some people over for steak that night, and I got to meet some of his friends, including the pastor from Saskatchewan (married to Jesse's girlfriend's sister) who is about my age. Weird. He was nice though.
New Years Eve was more of a party than last year, but still pretty tame. Jesse, Mark, and Colleen (Jesse's girlfrind) hung out at his place all evening. We watched a couple episodes of the first season of the Office, and the first season of Lost, which Tim loaned to me. I'm pretty much hooked on Lost now. A great show! We played some cards, and made lasagna. Yeah, no crazy stories this year, but it was fun.
Jess and I went to Jude's for lunch New Years Day. She had Allison, their friend Kirsten and us over. It was really nice- Jude has always been a fantastic host, so that was good. We had a nice visit with them, and determined that Kirsten knows one of the Honourary Assistants at the Cathedral! Small world I guess. Jess dropped me off at the airport about five, for my six thirty flight. I was going to Calgary, laying over for a bit, and heading on to Victoria. I found out when I checked in that both flights were late, the second one by two hours! Also, my luggage was going straight to Vic. I don't know why I booked that flight and not one that was more direct- I hope it was cheaper.
The flight from Calgary ended up being two and a half hours late. I was very, very thankful that Mom and Dad had given me an Ipod nano for Christmas. I spend most of the time playing Solitare! Luckly, WestJet has TVs in the planes, so when we finally took off, I just sat back and turned up the volume to drown out the baby behind me. We landed, and my luggage only took twenty minutes to come out. By now it was after midnight, so I decided to take a cab into down, and forget the expense. The shuttle takes way too long, and won't drop me off anywhere near the house anyway. However, it turned out that three jets had all come in at the same time, so everyone was waiting for a cab. Being a young, strong man, I was holding back a little, and letting people go ahead. Fortunatly, this little old lady came along who was going my direction. I turned on the old lady charm that I have in buckets, and split a cab with her. The best part about this, other than the savings, was that once you have an old lady to look after, you can be a jerk and push ahead. First cab that came after I met her, I was out and loading before it had stopped! Then, on the way into town, we passed the shuttle. Heh. I finally got home about quarter to one, and promptly passed out, to get ready for work today.
